H.264 Support Finally Comes To Fedora Via Cisco's OpenH264

[phoronix]

Phoronix: H.264 Support Finally Comes To Fedora Via Cisco's OpenH264

It's now easier having basic H.264 support on Fedora Linux with there now being an official way thanks to cooperation with Cisco...

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Fedora-H264-OpenH264

[chilek]

Isn't is simpler to activate rpmfusion repo and then install x264? Less letters to type and more functional H.264 support! ;-)

[RahulSundaram]

Isn't is simpler to activate rpmfusion repo and then install x264? Less letters to type and more functional H.264 support! ;-)

Perhaps but Fedora cannot point to that. It can however include Cisco's implementation.

[droidhacker]

I'm not really seeing the point here... as a decoder, don't pretty much any device able to software decode h264 have a dedicated hardware decoder, like UVD?
dnf install mesa-vdpau-drivers....

And as an ENcoder, it would be better to skip h264 in favor of things that are actually free. The only use for h264 is in consumption.

[bastiaan]

Perhaps but Fedora cannot point to that. It can however include Cisco's implementation.

No, Fedora cannot include this implementation, because according to Fedora's "legal policies":

...distributing such software under benefit of a patent license may make the software effectively non-free and thus incompatible with Fedora legal policies.

Note that Fluendo offers a MP3 plugin for the Gstreamer multimedia framework [...] for free [...]. Fedora does not include or endorse these options ...

And in this case OpenH264 is exactly non-free, because none of the recipients of the code are allowed to change and/or redistribute it.

So I don't see how this improves the situation over using e.g. Rpmfusion.

[RahulSundaram]

No, Fedora cannot include this implementation, because according to Fedora's "legal policies"

Err no, it certainly can. It has already been approved by Fedora legal. FYI, you are quoting a page written by me back to me. That page is not the official legal policy. It has this prominent warning on top

"This information is provided only for answering common questions from Fedora users and should not be read as legal advice"

[jakubo]

speaking of which... is there any chance there will be rpm fusion for rawhide anytime soon?

[SystemCrasher]

I'm sorry to inform Cisco and their fans, but from purely technical standpoint, OpenH264 is a GARBAGE. Does not stands comparison against ffmpeg at all.
Here how it compares:
1) MUCH slower decoder. Like 2-3x (!!!) slower compared to FFMPEG. E.g. my laptop easily copes with 1080p youtube using ffmpeg. But chokes like mad on 720p movies using cisco's garbage.
2) It seems this garbage can't drop late frames reasonably. Should computer fail to fit real time, with cisco's codec it would display like 2-3 frames per minute, probably just keyframes. Ffmpeg would drop few late frames so nobody notices it, unless they are very carefully looking on what's going on.
3) To make it more "fun", Mozilla & derivatives often try to auto-download this unworkable garbage. And now Fedora? Come on, easy way to list entities who give no fuck about performance and usability. Using Cisco's "solution" is like showing users middle finger. Supplying low-quality, laggy solutions from proprietary-style vendor is hardly best idea ever.

So, USA users are really unfortunate they have to use Cisco's garbage. Whatever, but Cisco's expertise is hardly remarkable when it comes to codecs. Not to mention e.g. VP9 is both faster to decode and gives better bitrate/quality tradeoff. Then, H.265 has followed even more unfortunate pattern, being hard to decode and patent encumbered. Sorry, but such "standards" are better to be replaced with something better than that.

[amp3030]

Everybody call it open source, but last time I checked Mozilla does not even check if the binary is actually compiled from the source code Cisco shows on GitHub. There is a Firefox bug (that I can't find ATM) asking to make the binary verifiable. No one had replied to the bug report last time I checked. I hope Fedora is not doing the same mistake.

[ChristianSchaller]

Everybody call it open source, but last time I checked Mozilla does not even check if the binary is actually compiled from the source code Cisco shows on GitHub. There is a Firefox bug (that I can't find ATM) asking to make the binary verifiable. No one had replied to the bug report last time I checked. I hope Fedora is not doing the same mistake.

The binary is built using our Koij build infrastructure so you get all the same features you get with any other Fedora software, like verifiable checksums etc.